Resumo

As it happens on different industries, in the automotive arena the innovation adoption process starts with the framing of a specific set of problems to be solved (Utterback, 1994; Roberts, 2007; Drejer, 2002), proceeding next with the choice of alternatives and their effective implementation (Tornatzky & Fleischer, 1990). Nevertheless, there are few papers covering product innovation adoption in the automotive market (Williams, Dwiwedi, Lal & Schwartz, 2009), most of them about alternative propulsion technologies adoption (Yeh, 2007; Zhang, Gensler & Garcia, 2011; Ozaki & Sevastyanova, 2011).

The main objective of this research was to identify and discuss possible differences in relative importance amongst the factors influencing product innovation adoption by OEM in the US and in Brazil, based on a theoretical model developed to analyse the factors. Moreover, it sought to discuss the reasons for such differences, if any were to be found.

Most research studies on innovation adoption and diffusion analyze theoretical models applied to electronic commerce, information systems, IT, Internet, wireless communication and websites (Williams et al., 2009). To fill the gaps found in the literature, a theoretical model was developed to analyze the factors that influence the adoption of product innovation by vehicle manufacturers, applied to a context of a specific innovation (semi-active damping systems) with a view to evaluating the relative importance of influence factors for the Brazilian and US automotive markets.

A qualitative approach was chosen, since this model suits the analysis of a complex topic that has seen little research (Yin, 2010; Creswell, 2007), namely the patterns of product innovation adoption in organizations of the automotive industry. To evaluate the relative importance of the factors that influence innovation adoption in the two countries, the authors selected vehicle manufacturers and suspension and damping system suppliers established both in Brazil and in the US. Respondents include executives from the engineering, R&D, marketing and sales departments from plants in both counties

A detailed analysis on the interviews were performed to evaluate the relative importance of factors that influence the adoption of semi-active damping systems by Brazilian and US OEMs. The three most important and less important factors influencing innovation adoption in both countries have been identified. Results corroborated the relative importance of factors “relative advantage”, “trialability” and “costs” and, contrariwise to literature, “market pressure,” “supplier”, and “complexity”, for different reasons, did not prove true in the context of the present study.

The main objective of this article was to identify the relative importance of the factors that influence the adoption of product innovation by automotive market organizations in a developed country and in a developing country. . In addition, it raised a discussion regarding the reasons behind the differences found in the field. The study showed that the success of innovation adoption depends on the capability to understand the specificities of the different countries. This article has limitations inherent in the basic qualitative research method itself.

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